Monthly Archives: May 2016

We have a lot of fun with the t-shirts that we design and sell. Folks love them, and it’s always a thrill to spot one in the wild. But Jeff, our warehouse manager, has reported an increasing number of headaches in finding specific t-shirt sizes to fill orders, we finally took the plunge and embarked on a long-needed t-shirt inventory. If you’ve ever worked in a retail or sales environment involving t-shirts, you can probably feel our feels right now. Depicted here: Dane and Sidnee, doing the damage like champs.

This literal stock-taking has caused us to do some figurative reckoning as well, and we’ve made the decision to cut way back on t-shirts. Waaaaay back… to just our 3 (or maybe 4) most popular designs: Evolution, Put the Fun Between Your Legs, and our logo, the Chainring Heart (and we’re on the fence about Ask Me About My Bikenomics… it’ll depend on how many of those find new homes in the next couple months).

As for our other 17 (!) designs, browse them here (or come into our store), and pick up your size before they’re all gone. Every shirt that finds a new home gives our Jeff another piece of his life back!

I’ve doled out some bad, inactionable, sort of pompous road rage advice in my day. “Breathe,” I’ve said. “Remain calm.” Ha. As if it were so simple.

But finally, I’ve got some real help — from brain science! A zine I edited a few months ago has had a major impact on my commute. It’s called This is Your Brain on Anger, and it’s by by Dr. Faith Harper, a counselor in San Antonio who wrote it as part of the wind-up to her 2017 book with us, Unfuck Your Brain (you’ll hear more about that one later!). Like I said last time, I get pissed off a lot while I’m biking, which is not exactly the emotional state I’m going for in life, and also doesn’t exactly inspire me to make great choices in traffic.

Anyway, the gist of this zine is that anger is by definition always a secondary emotion—we use it in place of whatever we’re actually feeling that isn’t as culturally or personally acceptable. Like, say, the terror of a truck grille all up in your face, or the hurt of getting callously brushed aside by someone texting in luxury SUV—both literally in the road and metaphorically in your rapidly gentrifying city.

“Anger is a secondary emotion” has become my mantra on the road. It’s sort of helpful in forestalling my own anger… though once I’m mad, I pretty much forget everything but that ’til later. Most of all, it changes my response to someone else’s anger. When I hear a horn blare, or feel the whoosh of air as a car zooms past me too close and fast, I think “secondary emotion.” Wondering what they’re actually feeling and taking out on me is weirdly soothing. My reflex to respond by flipping someone off, blowing them a kiss, or yelling something sarcastic or crass dissipates completely when I can imagine that what they’re feeling is something other than murderous psychopathy.

In reality, almost nobody on the road actually hates me personally and wants to kill or maim me. I’m not so enlightened that I can excuse or even really forgive reckless or callous driving—don’t people realize they’re behind the wheel of a two-ton weapon? But it’s nice to learn that I can at least feel some compassion for someone’s bad choices and reactions, and prevent myself from ruining my own day by reacting in kind.

Years ago, we ran a post-holiday campaign urging readers to trade in their unwanted Kindle ebook readers for their same market value in zines. A couple folks went it, and everyone won. Times have changed, though. We caved and made everything we put out available as an ebook for a few years. It had seemed like we were really missing out, but then it turned out that only a very few of our books could even break even on the ebook conversion fees in three years. Starting in 2017, we’re going for a happy medium, where we convert only ebooks that we project will not lose money, and figuring our losses for each book are still smaller than most publishing houses’ marketing budgets. We’re not totally sure that it’s still a good idea, but we’ll keep trying ’til we know for sure that it isn’t.

In the meantime, if you are one of our rare ebook-buyers, and you want us to keep making them, we strongly encourage you to buy our ebooks directly from us! Ebook is now an option on checkout for almost all of our published titles. And in brand-new news, we just added an option where you can buy the ebook along with the paperback for just $3. When you buy an ebook on our site, you’ll get an email with download links to (usually) all three major formats within 24 hours.

And now we’ve also joined the race to the lowest price … at least, temporarily, with our new Super Bundle program. Every month for just one week we’ll run some kind of screaming deal with a theme. The first one (which runs through the end of our day on Tuesday, May 10, 2016) contains 8 books for $20 + shipping (or $10 if you want ebooks only), all on the theme of DIY summer projects. We’re still figuring out June’s theme and dates, but we’ll let you know.

Thanks for sticking with us through big changes in our world and yours! And as always, get in touch if you have questions or ideas or just want to say hi.

On Valentine’s Day in 2013 I finally brought home Ruby, my medical alert service dog, after years of meetings, phone calls, paperwork, and interviews. She’s been a wonderful angel for most of the time since but every day when we go to work she would be stuck sleeping on my the floor next to my chair. She would periodically look up at me, pleadingly. One thing that I hadn’t realized when I had applied for her was that a dog’s range of emotions is identical to a human’s and that Ruby and I were in a committed relationship. I had to look out for her, make her feel loved, and take care of her.

Fortunately, I took quite naturally to this situation. She sleeps in bed with me, leaning against my leg. When I sit on the couch she wants to be napping on my lap. But our work arrangement was not as easily resolved as our home life. I began letting her nap on my lap when I was sitting in my office chair. But she would nervously perk up whenever the chair rotated or leaned and my legs would go numb under her in less than an hour.I knew that the situation called for desperate measures. Ruby’s work and our relationship allowed me to safely go places unescorted. I swapped out my desk for a series of filing cabinets, attached a monitor arm to one of them, and ordered a mounted swivel tray for my keyboard, mouse, and beverage. I swapped out my chair for the office futon and now not only can Ruby and I take office naps but she can sit next to me all day long and snore as she leans against me, still paying attention to my blood glucose. When we arrive at the office every morning, she immediately bounds over to the futon and pleads me to join her.

About a year ago, I was visiting my pal Davey’s bike shop (the recently exploded & then reopened G&O Family Cyclery in Seattle) and impulsively bought a little, waterproof speaker that straps onto my bike’s handlebars.

It immediately changed my daily life. Instead of a tedious, repetitive daily chore, my commute instantly became a solo dance party on wheels. Suddenly, fewer people would pass me in the bike lane. Was I inspired to keep pace with the music, or were they hanging back to rock out to my tunes? Hills seemed less steep, and the familiar sights I passed every day took on new meaning and interest in alignment with the soundtrack.

I also noticed, though, that my music choices majorly affected my experience and how I rode. One day I put on a particular punk album, and rode recklessly and made unsafe choices—that was immediately deleted from my phone. For a while I biked to work listening to the Riot Grrrl bands I’d never explored in the 90s, and would arrive feeling energized, empowered, and all worked up and ready for the day. But eventually, I realized that listening to Bikini Kill, although it spurred me along to great speeds and passionate determination, was also giving me a major case of road rage. Every little clueless, reckless, or thoughtless thing that someone in a car would do would set me cursing; even just driving past and existing on the road at all seemed inexcusable. It was exciting, but not fun, and not how I wanted to interact with the world or feel every day.

So I deleted all the angry music, too.

What did that leave? Well, my friend had just turned me on to her favorite band, Cloud Cult. Sitting in her house and listening to it for the first time, I was skeptical. The lyrics were sentimental and their extreme positivity turned me off to an extent that a therapist could probably have a field day with. The musical style was not one I was used to enjoying. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t relate to it, either, and I am sorry to say that I did judge it a little, despite my best effort not to.

But now it was the only album left on my phone. And the first time I played it on my commute, the difference was amazing. The upbeat tempo worked perfectly to bike to, and the extreme positivity … as well as the active attempt that I had to make to embrace it … gave me a whole new attitude on the road. Someone passed me too close and I grinned. I witnessed a near crash, and went around it, whistling.

Have my musical tastes changed from angry to posi? Absolutely not! I mean… okay. Maybe. Go figure. At least having a music-induced mellow attitude on the road during my commute gives me the time and space I need to have a heart-to-heart with myself over my lifelong musical choices and their connection with my emotional state. All that for only the cost of a bike speaker and a few albums? Priceless.

Our indie bookstore crush this month is on Mac’s Backs, a paperback-focused new and used bookstore in the Coventry district of Cleveland, Ohio. This was the store where young Joe would go to get inspired… and when we went back a couple of years ago (after having peanut butter, banana, and pickle sandwiches at the attached restaurant), the bookseller he remembered best, Suzanne, was still there, with a friendly greeting! The store is one of those labyrinthine places, where just when you thought you’d seen every section you find a new door or spiral staircase and it takes you to a whole new realm, with books stacked everywhere and a well-chosen but not-too-controlled selection—perfect for browsing.

We partnered with Mac’s Backs this month in honor of Independent Bookstore Day (which was technically in April, but we like to celebrate it every day). Suzanne, now the owner, thoughtfully answered our interview questions. Read on!

1. What is the story of Mac’s Backs? How did you decide to get into the bookselling business?
My business partner Jim McSherry opened the bookstore in 1978 and when he was looking to open a 2nd location in 1982 I came on board to run it. I thought I would be doing it for a few years until it got off the ground and here I am 36 years later!

We are a new & used bookstore with magazines located in a busy walking neighborhood near Cleveland’s museums and Case Western Reserve University. Our area is very diverse and we have a wide range of customers. It is essentially progressive, democratic and left-leaning politically. There are also lots of families that come here—we are attached to a very popular restaurant that caters to all generations. Our business district has many unusual indie shops and restaurants and being part of such an eclectic shopping community has contributed to the longevity of our store.

2. Joe still talks about buying books from you when he was a teenager growing up punk in Cleveland. Have you seen changes over the years in what kind of books your teenaged—and other-aged—customers are looking for, and what they seem to be making of them?
Over the years our customers have read to educate themselves as well as for entertainment. Our best sections have always been classics, literary fiction, philosophy, poetry and political books like the People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. We have a huge used science fiction section so we have tons of sf customers. Our biggest growth sections in the last few years are children’s books and graphic novels. And if five good graphic novel for middle-grade girls could be published every day that still may not be enough to satisfy the demand!

3. What are your favorite books that Microcosm publishes or distributes? What about your favorite non-Microcosm book in the store right now?
Some of my favorite books that I buy from Microcosm are by Aaron Cometbus. I liked learning about the Berkeley booksellers in The Loneliness of the Electric Menorah and I really enjoyed Bestiary of Booksellers. There is a writer in Ellensburg, WA named John Bennett who used to publish a series called Survival Song, which was an episodic chronicle of his life that I was addicted to reading. I find the same everyman qualities in the books by Cometbus.

My favorite non-Microcosm book to recommend to customers is Through the Windshield by Mike DeCapite, a fictional account of a soulful cab driver in 1980’s Cleveland whose best friend is a wise-cracking compulsive sports fan who bets on everything.

4. What do you think of the state of the book industry right now, and where do you foresee it going in the next ten years? What would you most like to see happen?
I think neighborhood and indie bookstores have been strengthened in recent years. The robust grassroots buy local movement across the country has really made a difference in how people think about shopping. They understand that their choices have consequences in their community and have responded by supporting local independents—and that has made a huge difference. This has allowed us to continue to do what we have always done—to be a friendly community gathering place, maintain a broad and interesting selection of books for our customers to discover and provide the best customer service possible. And our partners in this have always been the small presses like Microcosm.

We just got back into town this past weekend, after a couple of weeks in California. In that short time, there is a noticeable increase in the number of camps, and the number of tents at established camps along our route to work. Biking past before 8am, the tents are silent and zipped up; in the evening, people sit outside, playing instruments, chatting, watching the world go by.

There’s been a growing theme on the bike blogs and facebook groups I follow: fear of all the people living outside. The particular, rising fear for a while was of bike theft. My old employer at the BikePortland blog covered the topic extensively, even organized a bike theft summit. On every story, the comments were steeped in the fear—and presumption—of impending violence. That seemed to almost be dying down… and then there was a sexual assault on a secluded bike path, and suddenly it seems that fear of the homeless has turned up to fever pitch. It blew up last week on a thread (now deleted) in a facebook group for women cyclists. “I have empathy, but…” was the refrain. Fear trumps all.

It’s been upsetting to see the changes in Portland over the past decade. Ten years ago, mental health funding was kiboshed by the outgoing mayor, bent on leaving the city worse than she found it, and it’s been a long, fast slide downhill since then. In 2007-2008 and again in the past few years, our housing market has gotten beyond tight and prices have become untenable. Tearing down old mansions to build new apartments is okay with me; the gouging rents in those new apartments (and, in response, in older ones), not so much. If you don’t own a home or have a really stable, well-paying job, or preferably both, you’re really just a few months away from being shit out of luck in this town, and if you haven’t got a backup plan, well, welcome to being the newest member of the most-feared class of Portlander.

I find that prospect terrifying; I also find it impossible to fix that fear on the people it’s happened to. There are deranged people making bad decisions that are likely to hurt others at all levels of society; I’m way more nervous about the ones who are actually in positions of power, or who, not even realizing their power, have an influential voice among their friends and neighbors.

If you are actually living outside, then yes, your chances of being assaulted is tragically high. If you have a home and are just passing through… well, let’s just say your risks are astronomically higher inside your own home, while on a date, or at a party.

I think about all of this now as I bike to work. When I saw a man walking down the street yesterday in the peak of the heat, yelling and swinging his fists in the air, was I an anomaly for being more concerned for his safety than my own? It’s not that I’m particularly empathetic—that’s not my strength at all!—but I’ve spent a lot of time on city streets. I’ve done my diligence looking at the actual risks. And I’ve paid attention to the scary rhetoric on internet message boards by homeowners who are “empathetic, but,” and what I hear from the so-called progressive citizens of Portland makes me wonder if a Trump America would really be such a big change after all.

Founder of Top Shelf Comix’s Brett Warnock, has seen quite a bit. From the rise of indie comics to saturation of web and self-publishing, he turned to his second career as a nature and food writer and photographer. Listen here.